Techie No-no
Jennifer Flaten

?As you know, I rarely get control of the television. On those rare occasions, I want to watch something I have to arm wrestle the remote from one of the kids-which is getting harder and harder these days, those kids have muscles probably from hefting the remote.

It is just easier to not watch television at all. At times, I do join the kids for some cooking show or cute and fuzzy animals 101, which are eminently preferable to Twilight or whatever other teen dreck is out there, but more often than not, I am reading.

Imagine my surprise when I found myself in control the television set the other night. After scrolling through the seemingly endless list of tripe on the tube, I realized why I don’t care that the kids hog the television, there is simply nothing to watch or I should say nothing that I would watch.

I know I never expressed an interest in watching a program about competitive taxidermy, yet there it was a full hour length weekly (weekly!) program about just that thing. They can make just about anything into competition television these days. I thought I heard a commercial for a program on competitive bra fitting, but I may have misheard.

I know I also never expressed interest being privy to how a family of circus freaks lives, but apparently, a large number of people are interested in just that because that too is a new program.  Yes, why go to the circus when you can watch the freaks from the comfort of your own home.

Shortly after seeing the ad for those programs, I completely gave up on live television and possibly humanity in general and decided to watch a movie.

Now watching a movie should be easy, you just turn on the DVD player, insert a movie and voila, but no not in this house. Nothing is this house is ever easy-ever. 

First of all, I couldn’t’ find a DVD that I wanted to watch, despite the fact that I have three Netflix movies languishing in my “to watch” pile. How long have I had these movies, long enough for them to be eligible for permanent residence at our house?

I decided to watch a movie directly from Netflix. Before I could even attempt to cull the herd of movies in my “streaming” list, I had to actually access Netflix.

Since I so rarely do this, I couldn’t remember how to access the damn thing. I knew it involved pressing a bunch of buttons in rapid sequence, but other than that, I was stumped.

I mad three attempts, all unsuccessful although on that last attempt I think I rang up the Mars Rover by accident.  Frustrated and feeling rather idiotic, which is not a foreign feeling; I went to find a kid to get the television working for me.

I should be ashamed that I woke, well not really woke she was only dozing lightly my kid to help me get the television working, but I am not. I really wanted to watch a movie. Besides, what kid doesn’t enjoying showing off their mad electronic skills?

After sending techno kid back to bed, with some popcorn to buy her silence to the other kids, I looked over my streaming list. I didn’t want to watch any of them, which makes absolutely no sense since I was the one that put them on the list in the first place.

I’ve scrolled through my list and the list of what Netflix thinks I might like twice and I can’t find anything. I am starting to panic because I am almost out of movie watching time. Finally, I close my eyes and pick something. It was okay, better than competitive taxidermy for sure.